No Complacency on Human Rights & Civil Liberties

The Muslim Council of Britain continues to receive messages of concern from its network of mosques and affiliates with the cavalier attitude by those entrusted to observe due process with matters of civil rights and liberties of British residents and citizens.

In the past year the Muslim community has seen the deportation to the US of Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan. In what can only be construed as insensitivity and prejudice, the Home Secretary awaited their extradition before paving the way three months later for implementation of the ‘Forum Bar’ – a process that allows British courts to block an extradition request if they believe it is in the interests of justice for the defendant to stand trial in the UK.

More recent is the distressing case of the 23 year old Somali Mahdi Hashi, who lived in the UK since childhood, but was stripped of his British citizenship in what appears to be a move to facilitate rendition to the US, where he now languishes after torture in Djibouti.

However even graver is the travesty of the detention of Shaker Aamer, a British resident, now slowly dying in Guantanamo where he has been for eleven years today without trial!

The MCB, speaking for many Muslims in Britain, calls on the Foreign Secretary to seek their urgent repatriation to the UK, to face trial if necessary, and to give them back their lives.